Q: I installed Linux Mandrake 6.1 on my second hard drive (3GB) and it made two partitions: a non-DOS and an extended DOS partition. I deleted the non-DOS partition but I couldn't delete the extended DOS partition. FDISK says I can't remove an extended DOS partitions while logical drives exist, but when I choose the remove logical DOS drives in extended partition option, there are no logical drives defined.

-- email from Ali

A: The ideal way to get around partition problems is to use a third-party program such as Partition Magic. The DOS FDISK (fixed disk) program doesn't properly identify or manage partitions with formats such as NTFS (Windows NT's file format) and Linux.


Every operating system comes with its own program for fixed disk management. If you decide to make changes after installing an operating system, you can use a boot disk that comes with the software or create one from within the OS.

A utility that comes with Mandrake 6.x called Tom's Root Boot can act as a single-disk Linux. You can boot with this and use the Linux FDISK to access your Linux partitions.

Partitions on a computer divide the memory in mass storage into isolated sections. When you partition a disk, each individual partition behaves like a separate disk drive. Partitioning is useful if you run more than one operating system and also can improve disk efficiency on large hard drives.